Friday Bulletpoints For Your Consideration And Derision

Another week has passed. What have we learned? Friday is better than Monday, that's what we have learned - are you kidding?

Update: Toronto in 1977 and 2007. Just click on "next day" for the next comparison. 1977 was waaay cooler.

The Totalitarian Olympics (and, really, when weren't they) may be bad for your health. Who could have guessed it?

Speaking of fascists, this 1939 article in Time reported from Spain is instructive as to demands of the law of prudence. But, frank(o)ly, I do wish more men would wear swimming shirts. But not necessarily brown ones. Remember: "Beware of the cocktail! Beware of the one-piece bathing suit! Beware of the cigaret!"

Errr...given the track records for this model of vehicle, I'd be telling NASA staff to come up and tell the astronauts the news face to face.

The initial euphoria around the bacteriophage as a means of combating what had been incurable conditions subsided and the virus was all but forgotten. But not in Stalin's Soviet Union, where a research programme was pioneered in his homeland of Georgia...Once the phage has entered the body, it attaches itself to the bacteria causing the infection, and shoots in its own DNA to make the bacteria start producing bacteriophages. Within 30 minutes, up to 200 new phage are created, according to Dr Dixon, and in the process the bacteria die. The job done, the phage automatically start to disappear. And if the bacteria become resistant to the phage, as they have done to antibiotics, a new phage matched to the new bacteria can be developed. In order to inhibit resistance, a cocktail of phages would most likely be used in treatment.

How about that.

Just for the record, So You Think You Can Dance is the only reality-contest show worth watching. It seems to be much harder to fake dance compared to the more general entertainment. And it appears most of the top contestants get to use the show to make a real career. And I think I have learned somethings about professional dance. You can see I am still hedging my bets for the bit "it was all done with mirrors" scandal of 2009.

An interesting article this week by one of Canada's best spoken conservatives, Peter Lougheed, on the impending clash between Canada's Federal environmental law and Alberta's desire to pile pennies from the windfall (transfered for free from the Feds) of oil and gas:

Mr. Lougheed predicted that the dispute will very likely go before the Supreme Court as a constitutional reference, forcing the Court to decide whether the British North America Act gives the province the right to develop its energy resources as it sees fits. "My surmise is that we're into this constitutional legal conflict soon," he said. "And my surmise is that – and this is strong stuff – national unity will be threatened if the court upholds federal environmental legislation and it causes major damage to the Alberta oil sands and our economy."

Not much of a nation if the desire for localized wealth hoarding puts it at risk. And what does it say of a community that its business members have such control that their voice is the only voice in a dispute on division of powers - a corporatist province? Loughheed makes the point, too, that the development of the tar sands is haphazard. So is he asking whether anyone in charge?

Like everyone, I am not following the legal case between YouGoogTube and a whack of companies who do not like their content stolen but this call to the new order is bracing:

YouTube says it needs depositions from more than 30 people to fight legal challenges that "threaten to silence communications by hundreds of millions of people across the globe who exchange information, news and entertainment" through its website.

That is like the pawn shops association saying that charges against their members for dealing in stolen goods is a threat against the masses of people who exchange interesting items through their shops. Pap. Pappimissima. King Pap of the Papalonians. Fortunately, GoogYouTube has subpoenaed John Stewart and Stephen Colbert to clear the whole thing up. That'll help. No chance of unexpected points of view not helping mega-industry there.

That's it. I have done my work as the weekend stands before me. Note: afternoon game between Red Sox and Angels. We may be six up by supper.

Being the freakazoid that I am who has in the past spent a few years as an amateur researcher into infectious diseases (I positively love ebola by the way), I have always wondered why the heck we stuck with anti-biotic medicines when bacteriophages were far superior in many ways.. then I remembered the bad old days of propaganda where anything that the godless ruskies did different than we happy smiling westerners, must be wrong.

The winter olympics emphasis on figure skating and the like makes a person avoid the whole darn thing. And the US team always wears dorky red, white and blue outfits with ugly cowboy hats. I liked the good vs. evil scenarios of the 60s and 70s, where large and ugly East Germans and Soviets vied against truth, justice, and the American way.

Bacteriophages, will, I suspect, make a comeback as more and more infectious diseases begin to achieve complete antibiotic resistance and the skills of guys and gals in white jackets increase. Of course this will not be a welcome development for big pharma as there is no obvious way to commercialize what amount to tailor made treatments.

The feds attempt to regulate CO2 will go nowhere in most of the nation. It is gradually dawning on people that a)CO2 is a tiny part of the GW story, b) even if Canada reduced its emissions to nearly zero the Chinese project of a new coal fired generating plant built every 10 days ensures our sacrifice would vanish, c)the economic costs of radically reducing CO2 emissions (aka 20-30% contraction in the Canadian economy) dwarf any benefits which might accrue, d)the science has gone from predicting catastrophes of Biblical proportions to a couple of degree temp rise over a century and a foot sea level rise in worst case. (Algore has not, apparently, bothered to read IPCC 4 but a lot of other people have.)

While there are lots of polls indicating that "the environment" is the number one political issue in Canada there are none that I am aware of which have asked the question, "are you prepared to take a 30% cut in your standard of living to make essentially no difference to a problem which may not actually exist?"

The fond hope of the earnest and the green is that they will be able to off load the actual pain of CO2 cuts to the mega oil companies mucking about in the Northern Alberta goo thereby ensuring that there will be no economic pain for the environmentally hysterical middle class in vote rich Ontario. This will not happen. Or, if it does, Alberta will get to work reducing the federal presence.

The tarsands are one of the biggest emitters of GH gases including CO2 in Canada. Amusingly, John Baird notes that Alberta ...well I'll let him say it.

"Earlier this week, Peter Lougheed, who led Alberta through the squabbles about repatriating Canada's Constitution and the controversial National Energy Program that was designed to give the federal government more control over his province's oil resources, said new disputes over federal environmental standards would provoke a clash "10 times greater than in the past."

But Baird suggested Alberta is already moving in the same direction as his own government, in contrast to other provinces that are asking others to take action while resisting tougher standards for their own industries.

"The ironic part is that every province is talking about wanting to do a lot on greenhouse gases, (but) Alberta is the only province that's regulating big polluters," Baird said. "I'm always very cautious when everyone says: 'Yeah, we think we've got to take a lot of tough measures to reduce greenhouse gases, but get other people to do it.' There are a few provincial premiers who are somewhat like that." ( national post)

I'm still put off on the olympics. Big rich countries vie for the citizenship of excellent athletes who live in poorer nations that have crummy sports programs. To them, our athletes are rich beyond measure. So they came here, we hire them with a pittance of funding and call them Canadians, and the win us gold. Sounds like mercenary amateur sports to me.

And to stay on track, I have yet to see one good reason why China won the olympics.. ugh. pollution, corruption, poverty being swept under the rug.. amazing.

Gawd damnit. Check Big Papi's bat for cork. And get the umpires of the last couple of days back to ump school to teach them how to call balls and strikes. Youkilis should've been suspended! Fix! Fix! Hometown umpire! What the hell happened to the Angels bullpen? Total meltdown. THis sux. Fix! The RS Nation doctored the balls in the late innings! Fix! Oi, it sux to be back at Ma's, not more than 10 minutes away from Angel Stadium, and watch the old childhood team lose----to the Red Sox(we shall get even for 1986!).

Oh, and so I won't get e-lynched: having now looked at the Muslim doesn't want to to transport guide dogs thing over at the Toronto Sun(I think it was that paper) I think they got that one right. SHow a real bit of real religious dogma and you get a pass so long as some alternative exists(if it's the *only* rental hall in town it is a wee bit different). Same should have been for the KofC, where Catecism is real clear on the issue.

I don't think it's too much to ask that Law work somewhat like a math function. SImilar inputs should give similar, but still unique, outputs. That it apparently does not, that it seems rather arbitrary, is rather disconcerting.

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Pick any day's tunes as heard on CBC Ottawa's All in a Day hosted by my personal emailing buddy, Brent Bambury. You won't find a better music selection on radio anywhere - certainly not on the deeply dowdy CBC.

From Jan to March 2006, I tried a group humour blog with others on the subject of Canadian politics. It did not last but the posts were worth keeping. #16 was banned. There were no comments. It was at www.shadowcabinet.ca.